Making money online involves traffic. Whatever product or service a business is offering, people must visit their website to purchase it. Conversion rates are generally low, so a high number of visitors is necessary for success. SEO is the key to generating traffic for a website.

How SEO Affects Page Ranking

The new Google algorithm makes the layout of a website, quality content, and the keywords all important parts of search engine optimization. This determines the page ranking for a website, and traffic flow depends on this ranking. Ideally, a business must rank on the first page to reap major economic benefits, and rankings that fall below the first or second pages generate almost no traffic.

How Page Ranking Affects Traffic

The most popular search engine is Google, and a website that achieves a first page ranking for a particular search term can expect to have more traffic. Most available studies indicate appearing on the first page of Google will generate an average click through rate of just under 10 percent. The second and third spots is a higher rate than that, and the top spot is somewhere around a 35 to 40 percent click through rate. Considering the number of people using Google, this is an enormous boost to the business of the top ranked websites.

More Ways SEO Helps Business

There is a process most consumers go through as they make a buying decision involving the Internet. SEO affects each step of that process.

Consumers looking to buy something first search for it online. A simple search with a head term like expensive watches will show the websites that sell watches and have the best SEO.

Most consumers want to learn more about the product they are thinking about buying. These search terms usually involve more words and again the websites with the best SEO for those words will appear.

The informed consumer then compares products of a similar nature with more searching.

The consumer makes a final decision about buying the product, often referring back to previous information for review. Some more searching is normal to find the best price for the product.

The motivated consumer decides where to buy and does so.

In each part of this process, search terms go into a browser and SEO affects the outcome of those searches. This kind of search traffic is the most valuable since these are consumers looking to purchase the product.

Any company hoping to build traffic from search engines must use SEO to improve their page rankings and be more visible to the public. Every company wants the number one spot in the page rankings, but only one company at a time will hold that position. A business must decide between an all-out effort to capture the top spot or a more reliable campaign to make it to the first page. General wisdom says the latter is the correct choice, since it is safer and costs much less money to achieve. Once a company has made it to the first page of the rankings, then they can work their way up to the number one spot.

About the Author

Jo Harris is the Outreach Director for the Morgan Law Firm. She is a frequent blogger on a variety of subjects. The firm is located at 4101 Parkstone Heights Dr., Suite 250, Austin, Texas 78746 and can be phoned at (512) 551-0807. Additionally you can find more information on the Morgan Law Firm website.